The Performance Rankings were introduced in 2012 as a statistical analysis based on the average numerical score of all cigars assessed on Cigar Coop.  It is meant to serve as a barometer in terms of how the cigars were assessed

Today we slice this data by Country of Origin – a new category introduced for 2015. This is not meant to be an award, but a look at how scoring went, and what can we learn from it.

For 2018, a total of 199 (down from 205 in 2017) cigars were considered for this analysis. The average score for the entire set of 199 cigars was 90.74. (Statistically, this was down 0.10 points from 2017 when the average was 90.84)

We used the following criteria to implement this:

1. The cigar must have its score published during the 2018 Cigar Coop Cigar Year that ran from November 24, 2017, to November 22, 2018.
2. All cigars scored were eligible regardless of release date. The goal here is to see how the brand performed during the Cigar Coop Cigar Year.
3. The majority of the cigars smoked are from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. As a result, these three countries have a significantly larger sample set than other cigar-producing countries. Therefore, the sampling data has been divided into two groups – small and large. A large sampling group had 20 or more cigars assessed.

Large Sampling Data > 20 Cigars

Rank	Country	Avg Score # of Cigars (2018)	Avg Score # of Cigars (2017)	Avg Score # of Cigars (2016)	Difference (2018 vs. 2017)
1	Nicaragua	90.97 (90)	91.07 (83)	90.62 (115)	-0.10
2	Dominican Republic	90.59 (66)	90.85 (70)	91.44 (83)	-0.26
3	Honduras	90.14 (22)	90.23 (22)	90.30 (21)	-0.09

Small Sampling Data <= 20 Cigars

Rank	Country	Avg Score # of Cigars (2018)	Avg Score # of Cigars (2017)	Avg Score # of Cigars (2016)	Difference  (2018 vs 2017)
1	United States	91.83 (6)	88.75 (3)	91.25 (8)	3.08
2	Costa Rica	91.50 (8)	91.75 (8)	91.55 (11)	-0.25
3	Mexico	90.00 (1)	—–	91 (1)	—–
4	Brazil	89.00 (1)	—–	90.0 (1)	—–

 

Assessing the Results

1. There was a decrease in the sample set for 2017 as we increased our Feature Story and IPCPR coverage, thus reducing days we reviewed.
2. The Dominican Republic and Nicaragua continue to be the two dominant countries (not including Cuba) in terms of cigars reviewed. This is very much reflective of what is coming into the marketplace.
3. For the past two years, Nicaragua outperformed the Dominican Republic.
4. There was a slight decrease in the average score, and each of the three countries in the large sampling data group absorbed a loss in score.
5. Cigars produced in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Brazil were reviewed in 2018, but ultimately each of these countries had too small a set of data, but are included for reference purposes.
6. While it had too small a sampling set, the United States was the winner of the average score with 91.83. Cigars from Aganorsa Leaf (produced at the Casa Fernandez Miami factory) and Warped Cigars (produced at El Titan de Bronze) contributed to the average here.
7. Five cigars reviewed in 2018 did not have a country of origin specified. These cigars averaged to 89.80.